A High-Voltage Dynamo Named Domingo

Published: November 7, 1996

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Somehow he has also found time to keep an eye on his new Spanish restaurant, Domingo, which he opened at 209 East 49th Street in Manhattan with Josefina Howard, principal owner of Rosa Mexicano on First Avenue.

With a four-year contract in Washington, Mr. Domingo is already well into the planning of coming seasons, using promising new singers uncovered in his annual world singing competition, the ''Operalia.'' But he said he had gotten some disappointing turndowns from singers who had agreed to perform and then, offered a part at the Met, backed out. Established stars like the bass Samuel Ramey and the soprano Renee Fleming were fully booked and unavailable. (Joseph Volpe, the Met's general manager and a Domingo admirer, was unmoved. ''What does he expect?'' he said.)

Earlier this year, the company spent $18 million to buy the former Woodward & Lothrop department store in downtown Washington, and it plans to build a new opera house inside the landmark facade. But the work is expected to take years, and the money needed, estimated at $115 million, is not close to being raised. Mr. Domingo said he would pitch in, ''but I'm not going to do anything until half of it is there.''

Exceptional challenges have never fazed Mr. Domingo, who was born in Madrid and moved to Mexico City at age 8 with his parents, who were zarzuela performers. His feats were legion. When he and Mrs. Domingo joined the Hebrew National Opera in Tel Aviv in the early 1960's, they often sang without a single orchestral rehearsal.

In Hamburg in 1972, he was knocked semiconscious playing soccer and taken to the hospital, only to sign himself out in time to make it to the theater and sing a double bill of ''Cavalleria Rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci.'' In 1979 he was singing ''Tosca'' in Italy when he was called to fill in for an ailing tenor in ''La Fanciulla del West'' in Buenos Aires. He flew there, then on to Monte Carlo for a benefit concert (''I had promised Princess Grace'') and then back to Buenos Aires for two more ''Fanciullas'' before returning to Europe.

Patricia L. Mossel, executive director of the Washington Opera, who runs the company day to day, was with the San Francisco Opera in 1983 when their Otello fell ill on opening night. She reached Mr. Domingo in New York and arranged for a chartered jet to fly him across the country. The curtain went up three and a half hours late, but it went up. ''It was the best Otello I ever heard him sing,'' Ms. Mossel said. Afterward, the company made up T-shirts reading, ''I survived Opening Night 1983: Thank You, Placido!''

''Of course, it is an advantage to be musical,'' Mr. Domingo said. ''It could be hell if I had to go to the coach all the time.'' When he was young, he was able to learn a role in three days, he said. Now, he said with a smile, it can take as long as a week.

''The way I work is healthy for me,'' he said backstage at the Met last month after signing hundreds of autographs and posing for dozens of snapshots with delirious fans, mostly female. A nap and a shower are often all he needs to revive himself, he said, adding: ''I don't want to give the idea to the public that it's more difficult than it seems.''

Among those mystified by his energy is his own physician, Dr. Andrew J. Werner of Manhattan. ''I sometimes wonder if he has superhuman qualities,'' he said. ''His cells must produce some chemical other people don't have.'' More seriously, he said Mr. Domingo took no vitamins or stimulant drugs.

Mr. Domingo insisted it was simple. ''I can only say there is really tremendous love for what I do,'' he said. ''I really love everybody in the opera house.''

Photo: Placido Domingo, who lives at a tempo of presto, presto, presto: conducting a rehearsal of ''La Traviata'' at the Met. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times); Singing with Waltraud Meier in the Met's new ''Carmen''. (Sara Krulwich); Singing ''Take Me Out to the Ballgame'' with Robert Merrill in the New York Yankees' World Series victory celebration. (Monica Almeida/The New York Times); At the Warner Theater, scouting for a new home for the Washington Opera. (Amy Toensing for The New York Times); At his new restaurant chatting with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. (David Corio for The New York Times)